LAUSR

In the present study, pure and iron doped titania (Fe:TiO2) catalysts are synthesized by simple and environmental friendly sol–gel method (with Fe/Ti molar ratio corresponding to 1, 5, 10%) followed by hydrolysis process, drying and annealing viable for photocatalytic applications. The synthesized catalysts possessed tetragonal crystal structure with a predominant orientation along (101) plane. Crystallite sizes were found to decrease with increase of Fe concentration. A strong band below 600 cm−1 was an evidence of Ti–O–Ti networks. The Raman shifts are attributed to the effects of decreasing particle size on the force constants and vibrational amplitudes of the nearest neighbor bonds. A characteristic red shift was clearly seen from the absorption spectrum on increasing the dopant concentration. A decrease in band gap was brought about by iron doping. Pure TiO2 had a wide band gap of 3.27 eV, while the doped samples had smaller band gaps of 2.9–2.17 eV. Photoluminescence spectra confirmed the formation of oxygen vacancy levels. Excellent electrochemical activity was observed for 10Fe/Ti catalyst. The efficiency of the photocatalysts was evaluated by photodegradation of methylene blue (MB) as a target textile pollutant under light irradiation. The photocatalytic experiments demonstrated that 10Fe/Ti catalyst showed much better photocatalytic degradability (94%) of MB within 120 min than pure Ti, 1Fe/Ti and 5Fe/Ti, when used individually. The enhancement of photocatalytic degradation is attributed to the efficient charge carrier separation of photogenerated electron–hole pairs. Thus, Iron doping was found to play a decisive role in modifying the structural, optical and electro chemical properties of TiO2 catalyst.